In the evening of April 6 a few of Gen. Buell’s troops had arrived and
were placed in position. During the night the boats brought the balance
of Buell’s army across the Tennessee River and they were in line of
battle ere the break of day.
Volumes have been written about the battle of Shiloh. Some think
Buell’s army saved us. Of course, they helped to win the second day’s
battle; still there is nothing to prove that Gen. Grant’s army would
not have won without their assistance on the next day.
Let me quote what I wrote over fifty years ago, when it was fresh in my
mind:
“Some think it was Buell’s army that saved the army of Gen. Grant from
total destruction. I think otherwise, and my reason is this: we had
been driven back so near the river that our lines were concentrated as
before they were scattered. During the night Gen. Grant and his aides
had perfected their line of battle, and Gen. Lew Wallace’s division had
arrived from Crump’s Landing, and every man left in the line knew that
to retreat another foot meant total annihilation, and the words: ‘We
must whip them in the morning,’ were upon every man’s lips.”
The enemy was badly hurt, and Gen. Grant knew it and felt confident
that victory must be ours on the morrow.
The morning light had scarcely come on the 7th of April when the roar
of artillery announced the opening of the second day’s battle. The
command, “Forward,” was given and the entire line moved forward. We
were the aggressors today, and made the first attack.
Fighting continued steadily, the enemy yielding every foot with great
reluctance, stubbornly holding their ground, until 12 o’clock, when a
general charge was made, and the tide of battle was turned in favor
of the Union forces. During this charge, Will fell to the ground,
thinking he was shot through the leg, for it hurt so badly he couldn’t
stand up; he pulled up his trousers to see where the minie-ball had
struck him, to find that the ball had only grazed his shinbone, cutting
a nice clean hole through his pants, but not bringing a drop of blood.
Will was disgusted, that he should fall out with just a bruised
shinbone, and jumping up he went limping after his company.
By 3 o’clock Gen. Beauregard, who was now in command of the Confederate
forces, gave the order for a retreat. They kept up a fight to cover
their retreat until night, but when darkness came we were in possession
of our old camps, where we bivouacked, filled as they were with the
dead of both armies. We had no difficulty in sleeping well, even
though the silent dead lay all about us. The dead do not disturb us;
it is the living we should be afraid of. We built fires and cooked our
frugal meal, and, after eating, we gathered ’round the camp fire and
recounted the deeds of valor done during the great battle, speaking
kind words of our brave comrades who had fallen.
A few Sibley tents, torn and riddled by shot and shell, were all we
had left. I lost my shirts, blankets, letters from home, my testament
(mother’s gift) and a picture of the “girl I left behind me.” I was
more indignant over the loss of my girl’s picture then I was over the
other articles.
On Tuesday I was detailed with others to bury the dead lying within our
camp and a distance of two hundred yards in advance. I had charge of
digging the grave, if a trench over sixty feet long and four feet deep,
can be called a grave.
The weather was hot, and most of the dead had been killed early Sunday
morning, and dissolution had already commenced. The soldiers gathered
the bodies up and placed them in wagons, hauling them near to the
trench, and piling them up like cord wood.
We were furnished with plenty of whiskey, and the boys believed that it
would have been impossible to have performed the job without it.
When the grave was ready, we placed the bodies therein, two deep; the
father, brother, husband and lover, all to lie till Gabriel’s trumpet
shall sound. All the monument reared to those brave men was a board,
nailed to a tree at the head of the trench, upon which I cut with my
pocket knife, the words: “125 rebels.”
We buried our Union boys in a separate trench, and on another board
were these words: “35 Union.” Many of our men had been taken away and
buried separately by their comrades. It was night when we finished the
task, some of the squad, “half seas over” with liquor, but they could
not be blamed, for it was a hard job. The next day we burned the dead
horses and mules.
A few words about the great battle of Shiloh, as an old veteran views
it, as well as some words deduced from history.
It has often been told that the enemy surprised us at Shiloh; that the
men were asleep in their tents and were even bayoneted there. This most
certainly is erroneous. The Confederate officers report that early
Sunday morning, while they were planning the attack, their discussion
was abruptly brought to an end by the Union out posts commencing an
attack on them.
Our soldiers were _not surprised_ in the sense of being taken off their
guard.
It was a surprise in the sense, that Gen. Grant and his officers did
not expect an attack in force by the enemy, or if they did, they made
a great mistake in not being prepared. The fact remains, we were not
ready to receive the enemy; not a shovelfull of earth had been thrown
up for protection, and the several divisions were scattered so as not
to form a continuous battle line. If mistake it was on the part of
Gen. Grant, he profited by it, for such a thing did not happen ever
afterward. That the first day’s battle of Shiloh was a stubborn and
desperate battle cannot be denied. Badeau, in his military history of
Gen. Grant, says: “For several hours of the first day there was as
desperate fighting as was ever seen on the American Continent, and
that, in proportion to the number engaged, equaled any contest during
the rebellion.”
Gen. W. T. Sherman said: “I never saw such terrible fighting afterward.”
Gen. Grant has said: “Shiloh was the severest battle fought in the west
during the war, and but few in the east equaled it for hard, determined
fighting.” Again he says in his Memoirs, speaking of Shiloh: “I saw
an open field the second day, over which the Confederates had made
repeated charges, so covered with dead that it would have been possible
to walk across the clearing in any direction, stepping on dead bodies
without the foot touching the ground.”
Gen. McClernand and his division have never received their just meed of
praise for his and their part in the battle of Shiloh.
Gen. Grant in his later life says this: “The heaviest loss sustained by
the enemy was in front of Sherman’s and McClernand’s divisions.”
The official records show that on April 5, 1862, Gen. Grant had 39,830
men and officers for the first day’s battle, and Gen. Johnston of the
Confederates had 43,968 when we started the battle of Shiloh.
The loss of the Confederates was 24⅓ per cent; the loss of Grant’s five
divisions present for duty on Sunday was 26¾ per cent. The loss of the
Army of the Tennessee under Grant at Shiloh was 10,944; the loss of the
Army of the Ohio under Buell was 2,103. Only a few regiments of Buell’s
army got into action late in the evening of the first day. Total Union
loss 13,047, but this includes 2,314 Union prisoners of Gens. Prentiss’
and Wallace’s divisions; the loss of the Confederates was 10,699.
I remember no amusing incidents during the battle, save that of one
of my company, who was shot through the mouth in such a way as to
knock out all of his front teeth. He was a German, who spoke English
brokenly, and swore like a trooper; he would spit blood and then curse
the enemy with great vehemence, and loading his gun and firing, would
exclaim: “D-- ’em, dey tinks dey vill spile me so I can’t eat hard
tack, d-- ’em, I’ll show dem!” And so he fought while his comrades
cheered him on.
It has been said that war is grand and heroic; that fighting is a
glorious thing; so it is to read about, but the veterans of fifty years
ago have seen war; they know what a horrible thing it is, and I believe
that every old veteran who has stood in the battle front, has it in
his heart to say: “God grant that wars may cease, and that universal
peace may come to this world of ours.”
Shiloh was a terrible battle, and now after fifty years have slipped
by, I sit in my easy chair and occasionally dream of the past. I seem
to hear again as vividly as then, the booming of cannon, the rattle
of musketry and the whiz of the minie-ball, amid the cries and groans
of my comrades who touched elbows with me, and I ask myself: “Can it
be? Was I there, or is it a wild fancy of the brain?” The scenes come
too vividly before my memory to doubt it, and I thank God that I was
able with my comrades to bear a humble part in saving to those who
come after us, this grand nation, and in helping to perpetuate but one
flag, the Stars and Stripes--the “Heaven-born banner”--to float over a
reunited land and people.